What is the difference between the student who unquestioningly
writes down everything the professor says and the one who challenges
the prof with questions? It’s not just rudeness -- the second
student might be resisting easy answers, which means she is engaged in
the learning process. Clare Hasenkampf would like to see more students
become engaged in their learning, and soon, the Science Engagement
Centre will help University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC) science
students do just that.

Hasenkampf, associate professor and current chair of biology at
UTSC, worked with Charles Dyer of astronomy, John Scherk of math and
computer sciences, and Teresa Dawson of the teaching and learning
centre, on the Science Engagement Centre, the project she
affectionately calls SENG. “We’re going to SENG about
science,” she jokes.

SENG will be a resource to math and science students looking to
enhance their undergraduate experience beyond the usual course and lab
work. They can do this in one of three ways: through research
projects, in-lab mentoring, or by participating in a
students-in-the-schools outreach program.

“I thought back to my own student experience and asked myself
– when did I really get turned on to what I was doing?”
says Hasenkampf. “Those first years were a bit of a blur. It
wasn’t until I became a teaching assistant that I started to
really get it.”

But undergraduate teaching assistant opportunities are limited and
Hasenkampf wanted to see more students becoming engaged earlier in
their university careers. When a graduate student mentioned that in
hospital settings, students work in interdisciplinary teams to handle
problems, it struck a chord. Now she is using the concept to extend
research opportunities to undergraduate students, a goal highlighted
in the university’s academic plan.

Research projects are usually a one-on-one affair, accessible to
only the very top students, she explains, but there are still many
very good students who have much to contribute to the field. “So
we’ve come up with a model where students work as a team of
maybe five or six to tackle a research problem.”

SENG will encourage researchers to hand off interesting questions
to students, sometimes with as little background as a couple of
research articles. The students will decide what question to ask, how
to design the experiments and how much everything will cost.
“The students learn how to become mental players in the
projects,” says Hasenkampf.

SENG will also help place undergraduates in first and second year
classes as in-lab mentors. Students who have completed the course
fairly recently will be chosen to assist the current students.

“I’m hoping that if students know about the opportunity
to become an in-lab mentor when they begin Introductory Biology, for
example, they’ll be more motivated to come to class prepared and
be good citizens in the lab,” says Hasenkampf.

Finally, plans are also in the works to bring together existing
links with local schools and communities under the SENG umbrella.
Groups of students will design learning modules to be presented to
elementary or secondary students. The centre will help fulfil the
university’s outreach goals, as outlined in Stepping Up, by
bringing youngsters into the university and by going out into the
community. The community will benefit by having UTSC students as a
resource, and students will have opportunities to put their learning
to the test.

“It may seem like a trivial thing to be speaking about
science at a Grade Five level,” Hasenkampf says, “but
it’s actually a challenge to boil everything down to the
essentials. They have to learn to pick the appropriate language, and
have a top-notch understanding of the concepts, before designing the
modules.”

Right now, Hasenkampf and her team are finishing up a search for a
co-ordinator. Pilot projects with about a dozen students will begin
next term, with the full launch of SENG and its programs slated for
the fall.

“Students may enter science engagement activities thinking
they need something that’s going to give them an edge out in the
world – a recommendation, a line on their résumés.
But what they actually get out of it will be a lot more.”

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